Homage To Catalonia

Everyone who had been in Madrid said that it was completely different there. In Madrid the common danger forced people of almost all kinds into some sense of comradeship. A fat man eating quails while children are begging for bread is a disgusting sight, but you are less likely to see it when you are within sound of the guns.

though their principles were rather vague their hatred of privilege and injustice was perfectly genuine.

it produced a shortage of everything and a dismal dull life for everybody,

Of course at the time I was hardly conscious of the changes that were occurring in my own mind.

I found myself in the middle of a political discussion that practically never ended.

One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

The Communist’s emphasis is always on centralism and efficiency, the Anarchist’s on liberty and equality.

the New Statesman was treating us to tales of Fascist barricades made of the bodies of living children

there was no boss-class, no menial-class, no beggars, no prostitutes, no lawyers, no priests, no boot-licking, no cap-touching.

The Daily Mail, with its tales of red revolution financed by Moscow, was even more wildly wrong than usual.